The main goal of the project is to develop new strategies to be used in prevention programs aimed at teenage smoking. The proposed research will study the process of acquiring cigarette smoking as an expressive nonverbal behavior. Adolescents are targeted as a subject population because much acquisition occurs during this period. The first phase of the research uses a survey study and a diary study to examine the naturally occurring meanings of smoking for adolescents and identifies the contexts where these occur. The second phase of the research consists of four laboratory studies examining how changes in the perception of smoking as a nonverbal behavior may accompany the acquisition process. The final phase uses the knowledge gained in the first two phases to attempt to predict acquisition in a teenage population.